PAP

First dose of PAP this year. I have been shamed into action by the bubbly fresh faced enthusiasm of PAPper extraordinaire Tom Hughes (no relation). [Check out his work at www.tomhughespainting.co.uk.] Whereas I have been gloomily looking out the window, thinking it looks really cold, he has been out revelling in the PAP opportunities. [Check out his blog here www.tomhughespainting.co.uk/category/blog/.] Well, dammit, he's right and better late than never I make the effort and try and find some snow to paint.

It's rapidly diminishing, but the building site over the way from the studio has been pretty much left untouched and (again inspired by a Tom painting) I can put some diggers in for a bit of colour. It all sounds great, but I get lazy and try and use the old paint still on my palette from last year (a mistake) and any detail required escapes my worn brushes. I leave off the name of the hire firm - there's no point in trying and who is P Hickey anyway? (Apart from being the only person who might be interested in buying the painting.)

Walking around trying to find this spot I saw an inappropriately dressed man in a sharp suit and leather soled loafers. He's slipping and sliding over a sheet of ice carrying something to his car. He's trying to be so careful with the object that I think he must be holding a baby, but then he opens the boot and turns around and he's only carrying a large load of toilet paper. Crazy, I think, why's he risking a life time of bad backs for a bumper load of loo roll? This thought returns to me as my boots turn the snow beneath my feet to ice and I struggle with the picture.

I manage to get the painting to some sort of reasonable conclusion before I get too cold to continue. At least I'm back on the PAPping horse again.